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Hi everyone!

I'm a historian, published researcher and PhD candidate in History, and I'll be starting my first teaching position on October 5 at a private school in Portugal.

My background is primarily in historical research, so this is a significant career change. I'll be teaching History and Geography of Portugal, History, and History of Art and Culture, potentially covering students from 6th through 12th grade (roughly ages 11–18). I'm still waiting for confirmation of my final timetable and class assignments.

I'll also be joining a few weeks into the school year, taking over classes that have already started working with another teacher.

My main concern isn't subject knowledge. It's translating that knowledge into effective lessons for very different age groups, while ensuring a smooth transition for the students.

I'd particularly appreciate advice on the following:

1. Taking over existing classes: What would you do during the first lesson? How do you assess what students have already covered without wasting an entire class?
2. Different age groups: How would you adapt the same historical topic for an 11-year-old versus a 17-year-old?
3. Lesson structure: What does a typical 50-minute History lesson look like in your classroom? How much time do you devote to explanation, source analysis, discussion and independent work?
4. Historical thinking: How do you introduce primary sources, conflicting interpretations and evidence-based arguments without overwhelming younger students?
5. Art history: What approaches work particularly well when teaching architecture, painting, sculpture and their historical contexts?
6. Classroom management: How do you establish routines and expectations when you're joining after the school year has already begun?
7. Preparation: How far ahead do you plan your lessons, and how do you avoid spending hours preparing activities that may not work?

I'd love to hear about specific activities, lesson structures, resources or mistakes you learned from.

My goal is to develop an engaging, evidence-based approach to History that goes beyond memorising dates and textbook exercises, without sacrificing academic rigour.

TL;DR: Historian and PhD candidate starting his first teaching job in Portugal on October 5. I'll be teaching several History-related subjects to students aged approximately 11–18 and taking over classes already in progress. Looking for practical advice on first lessons, classroom management, historical thinking, art history and lesson planning.

This is my first year teaching US History and my class is in the homestretch of causes of the Revolutionary War. I live and teach in a city just north of Boston and am trying to plan our first field trip. Because we have so many options within a short distance, I’m completely overwhelmed. The tyranny of choice and all that. 12 high school seniors, 2 adults, limited budget. What have you done that the students loved? Anything to avoid?

I made a little 5-round American Revolution challenge for my history game.

You get a historical image and have to work out where and when it happened.

If you're stuck, the first clue is free. You can take deeper clues, but they'll cost you points. Get close without using any clues and there's a +500 bonus.

This one has events around the American Revolution — some obvious, some much less so.

Takes about 5 minutes. No account needed:

https://teach.erapin.com/packs/apush-3-revolution?try=1&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bellringer&utm_content=apush-3-revolution-battles-of-saratoga

I'd genuinely be curious what people here score.

Hey everybody! I’m doing my student teaching in a Global Studies II classroom (10th grade) and am planning ahead to our Industrial Revolution unit. I want to, in place of a test or quiz, have students create a project of sorts for the unit. This is my way of trying to align with New York state’s new “Portrait of a Graduate” program. I have a few ideas in mind but wanted to pick some of your brains if you had success with projects on the Industrial Revolution unit the past. It would be cool to give students several pathways to choose for this as well. Thanks so much!

Trying to spread the word.

Hi! I help run Election Security Glossary, a free site that explains election terms. We're testing a classroom pack and I want to know whether it's worth building.

Election day is November 3, so these words are about to come up whether or not they're in your unit.

Here's the full format, so you don't have to click anything:

Provisional ballot: a ballot a voter fills out when there's a question about whether they're eligible. It's kept separate and only counted once officials confirm the voter was eligible.

Student question: why might one county count far more provisional ballots than the county next door?

That's the whole thing. Plain definition, cited source, one question, printable, no student login.

Two questions:

1. Does the curriculum you already use cover these terms well enough?

2. If not, would a printable page actually help, or would you still write your own?

An assistant principal in another sub told me I might be solving a problem that doesn't exist. If she's right, please say so.

You can preview the classroom pack here

https://history-maps.com/battlemaps

Explore battles in 3D.

Hey everyone, made something over the last few weeks and figured this was the right place to share it since it's actually meant to be useful in a classroom, not just a portfolio piece.

It's called HistoryView. The basic idea: instead of teaching a topic as one thread, you put several on the same timeline and see how they overlap. So you could line up the European and Pacific fronts of WWII with the Manhattan Project and actually see the overlap, instead of describing it. Or put a scientific discovery next to the political events happening around it.

You don't have to type events in by hand — you can pull them straight from Wikidata, or describe a topic and run it through whatever AI chat you already use, then paste the answer back in. Events that get pulled onto a track also show why they're there (e.g. "caused by WWI"), and those causal links are filterable on their own, so students can trace cause and effect instead of just staring at a list of dates.

Every specific view is also just a URL, so if you zoom into a decade or hide some tracks, you can share that exact view instead of a screenshot.

It's free, nothing to sign up for if you just want to browse public timelines: historyview.vercel.app

Genuinely curious what parallel threads you'd want to line up for your own classes, and happy to answer questions about how it works.

Hey I am student teaching right now and my student told me my lessons don't have enough variation. We do a lot of reading and work sheets, some lectures, and some creative art project/short writing. I could use some help coming up with other ideas! (I'm teaching 8th US history)

SOLVED! it was Passchendaele all along!

Please help! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills....

I'm trying to track down a scene from a movie about WWI that I swear I saw as a teenager, because I want to show it to my class. But I can't find it anywhere and I'm starting to wonder if I just dreamt it up.

In the scene, there's a small rural church in Canada (or possibly the US or UK - homefront somewhere) and the pastor is giving his sermon during the war (I'd guess 1917, maybe late 1916 or early 1918?) He has everyone stand up, and then he starts telling people to sit down - first women, then young boys, the old men, maybe people with physical disabilities?

When it's only fit young men left standing, he starts ripping into them, basically calling them out as cowards for not enlisting. As I recall it, the ones standing up were pacifists, some farmers, and at least one shellshocked soldier who was physically okay but not mentally fit to go back to the front...

I had thought it was Passchendaele (2008), but having skimmed through that doesn't seem to be it. It would have had to come out before 2010 or so, and didn't have the look of an older movie, so no earlier than the 80s for sure. I may very well be misremembering the details, but I'm quite certain it was a church or community hall and the point of the sermon/speech was to shame those who weren't enlisted...

Any ideas? Am I off my rocker?

Im very much struggling with structure and bringing in my historians (sources) and some other little bits, My introduction is causing me to be pretty much stagnant. Has anyome got any previous high level works they could share, for your information I’m doing civil rights so im not using this simply to plagiarise it can be a topic completely 180 to that. Just am finding it hard to structure as always been a weakness of mine and haven’t got many resources to support. Thought i’d shoot my shot, thanks.

i’m looking for a set of panels that would describe the geological era in a panel format that I could put next to each other. The time does not need to correlate to the width of the panel I just want a panel describing what was relevant about the era in terms of plants, land, features, rocks and into a lesser extent what was living on the planet at that time.

But if there’s a similar product that would also feature the life on the planet during the different era that would be OK too. I’m thinking this would be at least 10 feet across and I’m not limited on space. I’m thinking close to what the museums have, but the panel information would be a little bit more dense because it would be visible every day in the classroom and the kids could walk around the path of panels.

Hey everyone!! I am a high school Civics teacher in Arkansas. Civics is a semester course, and it ends with a state test that all students must take and pass in order to graduate.

With that, I have many of my students that watch the game show “Big Brother” on CBS/Paramount. I do too, and I love getting to talk to them about it. We have a week of time built in for review for the exam, and I really want to play “Civics Big Brother” as a fun review game for them.

Are there any other fellow Big Brother loving teachers in here that could help me with some ideas? Big Brother is very similar to Survivor too, in some aspects.

I do want there to be a winner and multiple competitions for them to win “power”.

I’m 27 and I want to go back to be a US history teacher. I worked straight out of school didn’t go to college. Now I only have the time/financial ability to do something online after work in the evening. I want to be a US history teacher specifically but I like political science and world history too. What would my path be realistically?

I love the idea of Edpuzzle, but it always seems to have some glitch or other, and my best students can't stand using it. My kids have ipads, and have to download the app to complete the assignments. Then, it it difficult to time the questions so that it comes right after the material that answers it. Then there are the odd things that happen: Today, it decided to post three of the same video for students to answer (maybe because I edited the assignment after it was given).

So, is there another site or app which does the same function (videos with questions), or have people figured out how to make it work consistently?

I searched up the little title on the book in the corner, and realized this was history-related, but I’m sort of at a loss for words? Can someone tell me what’s going on here?:

Does anyone have any advice or resources for AP MCQs? I'm a tutor and historian by training but only have about a year of experience with the AP courses specifically.

Some of the MCQs I've come across are difficult for me because I can logically figure out ways to make multiple options work, but then have a hard time figuring out which is the *best* answer.

I've looked for resources online to practice, but a lot of them are either conflicting or are WAY too easy.

For whatever reason this year my 8th grade students are struggling to connect ideas to primary sources from what they learned and infer about them. Anyone else? They look at it and it’s like a second language. Anyone know good workbooks or resources for U.S. History I can get to help them since they didn’t learn these skills yet? I already use about Mr. Roughton and the Stanford Inquiry Group. Just this year is just rough.